


Slalom

by beaubete



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: 00Q NYE Exchange, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-05 10:10:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1092650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubete/pseuds/beaubete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stupid James Bond and his sodding ridiculous narrow escapes.  Who runs from an assassin by <i>deftly skiing away</i>?!</p><p> </p><p>...people with more coordination than Q, apparently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slalom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [assasyngal (monayra)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monayra/gifts).



> For assasyngal, as part of the 00Q NYE Exchange! Her prompt:
> 
>  _Q breaks his leg. hurt/comfort, fluff, shenanigans, whiny Q, minions_.
> 
>  
> 
> No minions and only mild shenanigans, sorry, but more hurt/comfort and fluff than you can shake a stick at! Enjoy, dear, and Happy Christmas!

His fingers shake as he touches, just glancing his fingertips over the waxed wood delicately, and agony tears at him.  Damn Bond.  _Damn_ him, Q thinks, hands folding in his lap as nausea sweeps over him.  It’s Bond’s fault— _Slalom_ , he’d said, then shot off like an Olympic athlete medaling in being a posh bastard who did things like _ski_ in _Switzerland_ as a child, never minding the assassins behind them armed with semi-automatics and Q barely knowing how to grip the ski poles in his heavy mitts—and the memory of going down, of the whole world spinning as he began to freefall with nothing but soft powder to grab at for help…and then the sickening crunch and the whole world going dark.  He’d come to in a dazed and miserably hurt lump at the bottom of the hill, surrounded by pines and snow and Bond standing overhead like an Old Testament angel, protecting him with wrath and rage and deadly shooting accuracy; he’d vomited and promptly fainted into his own sick, and when he woke up again he was here, leg trussed firmly between their broken skis and the shredded remains of Bond’s shirt torn to strips to bind them.  Toe to thigh, he aches with the worst pain he’s ever felt, but the knots are tight and secure, and he’s flat on his back on the sofa of a strange ski cabin, a blanket over him and a fire puttering in the fireplace.  Bond rounds the corner, gloriously fire-kissed and topless.

“What happened?” Q asks, voice muddy.  His mouth feels thick with sleep and hurt, and Bond shushes him, coaxing him back against the hard cushions.

“Do you know who you are?” Bond asks seriously, and Q looks at him as if he were daft.

“Bond.  That is the direst, most pathetic attempt to collect my name I’ve heard yet from you, and that includes, ‘I need someone to be my reference when I apply for a new flat; who should I put down?’.”

“Checking to make sure you don’t have brain damage, love.  You took an awfully hard hit back there,” Bond says defensively, smoothing his fingers over Q’s brow before dragging them through his hair.  For a moment, Q bristles—he’s not some woman for Bond to chivvy up, and he’s certainly not a ‘love’—but Bond’s strong hands sweep methodically across his scalp to search for tender spots, and before he knows it he’s nearly purring in Bond’s hands.  He makes a token sound of protest that comes out satisfied and meek instead, and Bond grins at him almost fondly.  “Leg, though—not much I could do for that besides splint it.  I know it must hurt terribly, but we’ve got to get something in you and make sure it stays down before I can give you anything for it.”

Q remembers the sick-up from before and flushes, but Bond pets him gently, no longer searching for bumps.  Neither of them mentions it.  “What next?” Q asks, looking around the room for the first time.  They’re in a barren cabin, barely more than a kitchen with a sofa and a fireplace; there’s a loft at the top of a rickety ladder he knows he’ll never climb, and outside the moors are dark and white.

“Next, you take some of the soup I’ve made, and then hopefully some medicine and you go back to sleep.  I’ll keep watch,” Bond says.  His fingers leave Q’s hair and Q makes a sad, involuntary sound; he catches the hint of a smile on Bond’s face as he fetches a bowl and spoon from the cabinets.

“Soup?” Q repeats, confused.

“Soup,” Bond confirms.  He plonks the bowl down on the table in front of Q, but when Q leans to sit and eat, white pain sears through him and he collapses, panting.  Bond tuts and sits on the table, lifting a spoonful to Q’s lips.

“I’m not a child.  I broke my leg, not my arms,” Q says, but it sounds sullen and petulant to his own ears, like a child complaining.

“Humour me,” Bond says dryly, and Q realizes he is unexpectedly—though understandably—exhausted, too tired to fight.  He opens his mouth obediently, eyes crossed to watch Bond’s expression of utmost concentration as he spoons the watery soup—little more than melted snow with whatever Bond was able to scavenge from their own supplies and the apparently abandoned cabin’s stores—into his mouth.  “I was worried,” Bond confesses suddenly, carefully placing the spoon and bowl to the side.  “You have no idea how terrifying it was to see you—I thought you’d been shot, but there wasn’t any blood, just…at an awkward angle, your leg, and I thought.  Well.  You weren’t going to die on the side of a mountain in _Scotland_ alone.”

The back of Bond’s hand is cold but the palm is burning when Q curls his half-frozen fingers around Bond’s and squeezes.  “Thank you,” he says simply, and he lets Bond pick up the bowl and spoon again before adding, “—but if you’d just listened to me in the first place, we’d never have had to ski away from trouble in the first place.  Ski!  Why can’t you be a le Carré sort of spy, where there’s no death-defying escape to be made fleeing on the back end of an ice-covered mountain at a dodgy ski resort while the baddie’s hired goons shoot at us?”

“I don’t like le Carré’s novels.  They’re boring,” Bond protests.

“And you don’t like the Beatles, either.  Yes, yes, Mr. Bond, we’ve established you have shit taste.”

“Have you eaten all you want?” Bond asks around his grin, setting the food aside again.

“More than.”

“Are you queasy?”

“No,” Q says, embarrassed by the grateful flush that steals over his skin at Bond’s concern.  “Sleepy now.”

“Medicine first,” Bond tuts, standing to retrieve what looks like his shave kit, and Q’d had to leave his tablet behind—cried to set off the self-destruct with his mobile as they dashed out—so how did Bond get out with his bloody straight razors?  As he opens his mouth to ask, Bond tips two small pills into his palm and curls his hand around them, offering a glass of water that’s still a little warm from the melting.  “Careful, now.  One at a time, and these are going to put you on your arse.”

Q follows instructions dutifully, fights past the nausea as the pills cling and stick dry in his throat before grabbing the glass and trying to drain it to get them down.

“Slow, I said,” Bond scolds, reaching out to grip the bottom of the glass and regulate the water to slow, even sips.

“I’m not a bloody child,” Q snaps when he takes it away.

“Goodnight, Quartermaster,” Bond says, and Q wants to fight, but despite the insistent pain in his leg, he feels his eyes growing heavy and dusty with sleep.

“Bond—” he tries.  He can hear Bond’s footsteps in the far distance as the waters of sleep close over his head, then the soothing touch of a hand in his hair.

“Goodnight.”

::

Q wakes screaming.  It’s indescribable, this pain.  Incomparable, even to the broken fingers and sprained joints he’s had before; it’s something like a block of broken glass has set up inside his leg, made up of jagged, sore edges that stretch and grow with each breath.  The pain clambers its way across his skin until it feels like even the touch of the rough cabin blanket is cutting him, leaving him bloody and shattered, and the splint is too tight, too tight.  All over, he feels the cold like a slap in the face, like a keen edge splitting his skin, but under the blanket he’s taut and sweating; it’s a fever, he realizes, and Bond is swearing, running his hands over Q’s skin until he’s dizzy with it and hurting.

“Jesus,” Bond mutters, skimming above Q’s leg with his palms; there’s an inch of space between them and still Q can feel his touch like a brand, the heat of his hands overwhelming.  He jerks and Bond pulls away, frantic and concerned.  “Jesus.”

“It’s okay, Double-oh Seven,” Q tells him, makes his mouth work even when he’d rather grit his teeth to help him ride out this pain.  “It’s just a fever.  Let me out into the snow and I’ll be fine.”

Bond’s eyes are bleak.  “Bloody pills must have expired.  Q, I—”

“Picked them up last time you went to Medical, did you?” Q says as lightly as he can.  “When was that?  Six years ago?”

“Q.”  And Q finally registers the self-recrimination on Bond’s face, the helpless rage turned inward and down until Bond can no longer look him in the eye.

“Double-oh Seven,” Q says back, voice playfully stern.  It doesn’t change the stiff line of Bond’s shoulders, the tight knot of his fists in the blanket by Q’s throbbing leg.  “Bond,” he tries again, gentle.  “ _Bond_.”

“It’s my fault,” Bond says, voice rough.

“What, did you trip me down that mountain?” Q asks.  “Because I’m pretty sure that was my own shadow.  Did you shoot at me from behind while I was trying to get away?”

“I shot those men,” Bond tells him eagerly, as if seeking approval.

“So you protected me.  How absolutely horrible of you,” Q says with satisfaction.

“But I asked—” Bond says, and Q remembers: Bond, standing smug and satisfied at the door; M’s words—going out into the field for a data retrieval mission, the only one qualified—and the press of train tickets into his hand; Bond drunk and friendly in their car, his thigh pressed against Q’s as he ignores the disapproving looks of the others on the train.  Bond asked—?  For what?  Why?  Q opens his mouth to ask, but.

“You’ll just have to make it up to me, then,” he says instead.  His head is full, heavy with thoughts as he shifts so Bond can sit and he can sprawl across his lap; he curls as carefully as his leg will let him and lifts Bond’s unprotesting hand to his hair.  “Get to it, then.”

Bond pets him into a dozy state, far past the point his hand must be tired, then cups the shell of his skull until he falls asleep again.

::

Without anything for the pain—Bond won’t give him more of the pills, even when Q begs and Bond’s mouth goes soft and hurt and trembling—the days pass in a fugue; Q wakes and sleeps intermittently, opening his eyes to irrefutable proof of Bond’s doting care each time as Bond strokes his hair or mops his brow with a snow-packed cloth or changes his clothes—the last one leaves Q shy and embarrassed until he realizes Bond’s just as awkward about it.  When he finally comes to, though, he’s in familiar settings: long-term care in the Medical wing of the SAS.  Bond sits at the side of his bed, asleep; there are rings under his eyes deep and packed with exhaustion.  The nurse looks up at Q with amusement when she notices he’s awake.

“We cut back your dose of painkillers.  I’d imagine we’re going to get a lot less nonsense out of you; I’m going to miss you telling everyone about your golden hero protecting you with a sword forged of love.  He did a fine job splinting your leg, though,” she says, her mouth a turn of amusement.  Q could die on the spot.  She takes pity on him.  “It’s the drip.  Does funny things to the best of us.”

“Though I’d have preferred you tell me you were interested in my love sword before enthusing about it to Mallory.”  Bond’s voice is a sleep-graveled grumble from the chair; Q flushes.

“But you went to such trouble to ensure we were alone,” Q says finally.  “I thought I’d let you get your own confession out before I stole your thunder.” 

Bond has the grace to look abashed.  “I’m sorry about that, Q.  If I hadn’t—it was entirely my fault.”

“Not entirely,” Q reminds him, wriggling on the bed to position his head near Bond’s grip on the white sheets.  Bond understands, happily digging his fingers into Q’s curls.  Q sighs, sinking into the bed; the nurse has disappeared to afford them privacy, so he doesn’t bite back the orgasmic groan at the feeling.

“How ever will I make it up to you?” Bond asks, and for the first time since Q’s injury his smarmy self-satisfaction seeps through again.  Q would groan again at the thought of having provided Bond with ammunition against him, but he has a better idea:

“Shut up and get down here.  I can’t steal kisses when I can barely move.”

Bond grins.  “Yes, sir.”


End file.
